In your last letter, Auguste, you told me how sorry you were not to have been accepted into the National Guard because you were not registered on the Parisian electoral rolls. I can only rejoice. First of all, we did not pay such an exaggerated price for your replacement so you could risk your life defending Paris. Secondly, your brother-in-law Jules told me that as those soldiers of fortune receive 1 franc 50 per day, everybody wants to sign up, including the ignorant, drunken brutes from the faubourgs, lending them a very debatable moral worth. It seems they elect their own leaders and are demanding to be armed with chassepot rifles, to defend against the Prussians supposedly. It is no place for you, among such vile characters.

In other news, young Perret has not returned from the front. We do not know where he is. We await word.

I believe that is everything for now. You are very much in our thoughts. For our part, there is nothing for us to do but place ourselves in God’s hands.

Wishing you good fortune, and vive la France!

‘Nobody is telling me anything about my replacement —’

‘Now we have the Republic, Paris will be like some feline gathering itself before it leaps. There’ll be two hundred thousand of us and we’ll join up with the armies in the provinces who are carrying on the fight.’

‘And there’s my brother, calmly advancing his pawns, perfectly happy to invoice for two-hundred-man-strong construction projects while only employing fifty labourers —’

‘We shall eviscerate them!’

‘With that obsequious lizard Thiers in charge, the family company will be able to line its pockets even more.’

‘Yes, and what of it? Are we supposed to stop earning money for the pleasure of those who have none? Thiers’ politics reflect those of the honest man who is keen for his business to flourish.’

‘But, Aunt, you do realise! Ferdinand is going to be working for the occupier!’

‘Well then, he’ll just have to charge those pigs double!’

‘One day I shall write a piece on this ability of the human mind to reconcile the irreconcilable in order to reduce one’s inner conflicts. You will serve as my case study, Aunt, so expert are you in the field!’

‘While you get around to writing that book of yours, let’s go out. Why don’t we dine at Brébant’s while they still have something to serve us.’

‘Wait for me downstairs, I’m just going to look for an evening paper.’

‘Will you pick me up La Mode Illustrée ... So I can see a little how one is supposed to dress during a siege. Neo-classical, elliptical crinolines, flounces, crins . . . Frankly, it’s hard to keep up.’

Notwithstanding the rain, the streets were overflowing with people. It was as if the citizens of Paris, having been made prisoners in their own city, were living their lives exclusively on the boulevards.